Gold Reserves

In its boldest response yet to accusations that it profited from the Holocaust, Switzerland offered on Wednesday to create a humanitarian fund that would draw on the country's gold reserves to aid victims of catastrophes, human-rights abuses and Nazi terror. In an address to Parliament on his country's role as a financial crossroads during World War II, President Arnold Koller announced that the government would establish the Swiss Foundation for Solidarity as a way to express the nation's gratitude for having escaped the ravages of two world wars.

There is gold in these hills -- at least $11.5 billion worth at last count, in a wind-swept area studded with glaciers, more than 15,000 feet up in the Andes. The world's biggest gold company wants to mine it, but is finding that a harsh terrain is not the only obstacle in its path. Though the Chilean government has tentatively approved the $1.5 billion mining project, called Pascua-Lama, opposition here in Huasco province is intense and growing. Local environmental and civic groups contend that the proposed mine will allow the Barrick Gold Corp.

Black South Africans are proving they have immense power as a nationwide strike of miners cripples coal and gold industries and threatens the economic well-being of this racially torn nation. The strike, which began Monday, has seriously affected at least 31 mines and is expected to spread to South Africa`s sole refinery. South Africa has built up gold reserves, but it is unclear how long those reserves can make up for the loss of new gold, South Africa`s biggest foreign exchange earner and its cushion against foreign economic sanctions.

Switzerland's justice minister met clandestinely during World War II with leaders of a Swiss anti-Semitic group, promising to stop most Jews fleeing the Holocaust from entering the country but warning that the policy had to be kept secret, according to documents contained in a report to be released today. The report, by the Simon Wiesenthal Center of Los Angeles, contains copies of minutes of meetings between Justice Minister Eduard von Steiger, who was also minister of police, and leaders of the Swiss Fatherland Association, an anti-Semitic and anti-immigration group founded in 1918.

NEW YORK -- Some of the world`s central banks are leasing their gold reserves to Wall Street`s investment banks and commercial banks in unregulated financial transactions worth billions of dollars. The practice enables the central banks, arms of foreign governments, to earn money on their gold reserves while supplying cheap financing to Wall Street traders for their commodities and securities operations. "This sounds like another excess of the 1980s combined with further evidence that greed can be a characteristic of central banks and governments as well as of financiers," said James Stone, a former chairman of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission and a fierce opponent of unregulated commodity markets.

Switzerland's justice minister met clandestinely during World War II with leaders of a Swiss anti-Semitic group, promising to stop most Jews fleeing the Holocaust from entering the country but warning that the policy had to be kept secret, according to documents contained in a report to be released today. The report, by the Simon Wiesenthal Center of Los Angeles, contains copies of minutes of meetings between Justice Minister Eduard von Steiger, who was also minister of police, and leaders of the Swiss Fatherland Association, an anti-Semitic and anti-immigration group founded in 1918.

There is gold in these hills -- at least $11.5 billion worth at last count, in a wind-swept area studded with glaciers, more than 15,000 feet up in the Andes. The world's biggest gold company wants to mine it, but is finding that a harsh terrain is not the only obstacle in its path. Though the Chilean government has tentatively approved the $1.5 billion mining project, called Pascua-Lama, opposition here in Huasco province is intense and growing. Local environmental and civic groups contend that the proposed mine will allow the Barrick Gold Corp.

JOHANNESBURG, South Africa -- British Foreign Secretary Geoffrey Howe said Monday it is up to the South African government to achieve "change by peaceful means." Officials said eight blacks died in racial violence during a 24-hour period. Howe met with some community and political officials as part of his mission to win commitments from the white-led Pretoria government to abandon its apartheid policies and avoid sanctions. Howe, sent to southern Africa as an emissary for the 13-nation European Community, said his scheduled meeting today with President Pieter Botha was crucial to the success of his mission.

The Panic of 1907, by Robert F. Bruner and Sean D. Carr; John Wiley & Sons Inc.; 258 pages ($29.95). The earthquake that devastated San Francisco sent economic shock waves around the world. In The Panic of 1907, University of Virginia corporate finance experts Robert F. Bruner and Sean D. Carr assert that the 1906 San Francisco earthquake triggered a "global liquidity" crisis that reached its climax the following year. "The strains from the catastrophe in California rippled instantly through the global financial system.

Women's rights urged in Kuwait KUWAIT -- The nation's leaders on Saturday urged the newly elected parliament to approve a controversial law granting women full political rights. Crown Prince and Prime Minister Sheikh Saad al-Abdulla al-Sabah called on the opposition-dominated assembly, in its first session since general elections on July 3, to approve about 60 decrees, issued during parliament's two-month dissolution, to boost "mutual confidence." The fate of the decrees will become clear on Tuesday.

In its boldest response yet to accusations that it profited from the Holocaust, Switzerland offered on Wednesday to create a humanitarian fund that would draw on the country's gold reserves to aid victims of catastrophes, human-rights abuses and Nazi terror. In an address to Parliament on his country's role as a financial crossroads during World War II, President Arnold Koller announced that the government would establish the Swiss Foundation for Solidarity as a way to express the nation's gratitude for having escaped the ravages of two world wars.

NEW YORK -- Some of the world`s central banks are leasing their gold reserves to Wall Street`s investment banks and commercial banks in unregulated financial transactions worth billions of dollars. The practice enables the central banks, arms of foreign governments, to earn money on their gold reserves while supplying cheap financing to Wall Street traders for their commodities and securities operations. "This sounds like another excess of the 1980s combined with further evidence that greed can be a characteristic of central banks and governments as well as of financiers," said James Stone, a former chairman of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission and a fierce opponent of unregulated commodity markets.

Black South Africans are proving they have immense power as a nationwide strike of miners cripples coal and gold industries and threatens the economic well-being of this racially torn nation. The strike, which began Monday, has seriously affected at least 31 mines and is expected to spread to South Africa`s sole refinery. South Africa has built up gold reserves, but it is unclear how long those reserves can make up for the loss of new gold, South Africa`s biggest foreign exchange earner and its cushion against foreign economic sanctions.

MOSCOW -- In an effort to rescue the Soviet Union from an immediate financial collapse, the world`s leading industrial nations agreed on Thursday to lend the Soviets $1 billion immediately and to defer the repayment of more than $3.6 billion in debts. But the deputy finance ministers of the Group of Seven nations made further Western assistance conditional on Soviet implementation of radical economic reforms under the supervision of the International Monetary Fund. Setting tough terms for Moscow, the ministers said that their governments would require more than 100 tons of Soviet gold, nearly half of its remaining gold reserves, as security for the $1 billion emergency loan, but would also continue the short-term credits needed to finance its foreign trade.

While Republicans opened their political convention in San Diego, President Clinton ventured into the wilderness on Monday to claim credit for saving Yellowstone National Park for "our children and our children's children." In a rugged, remote section of the park, Clinton announced a land swap with Canadian mining interests that had intended to reopen a gold mine on the park's outskirts, threatening to damage Yellowstone's rivers and streams. "Yellowstone is more precious than gold," Clinton said to an appreciative audience that included environmentalists, company officials, politicians such as Sen. Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va, and Rep. Bill Richardson D-N.M.